


Grand Canyon

by Slinkling



Category: Smallville
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-30
Updated: 2009-12-30
Packaged: 2017-10-05 12:26:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/41707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Slinkling/pseuds/Slinkling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lex isn't the one who's changed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Grand Canyon

**Author's Note:**

> Written as part of my 69 Love Songs project: an unconnected series of fics whose titles correspond to songs from the Magnetic Fields' album, "69 Love Songs." No, I did not actually succeed in writing 69 stories. This fic's song was #29.

_If I was the Grand Canyon  
I’d echo everything you say  
But I'm just me  
I'm only me  
And you used to love me that way  
_    - Magnetic Fields

***

Lex isn’t the one who’s changed.

Arguably he was asking for this from the beginning.  It’s not hard to imagine what his father would say.  _“What did you expect, falling in love with a fifteen-year-old?”_ Lionel would sneer.  _“Eternal passion?”_  Somehow he would make this sound dirty, or pitiable.  And Lex would have to toss back a drink like he didn’t care, like of course he knew that love is an illusion, a weakness, all the things Lionel has drummed into him since birth.  Probably he’d try to prove how aloof he was by making a quip about Clark’s perfect ass and how that wouldn’t last either – a comment he would later regret.  These are among the many reasons he never let Lionel know how hard he had fallen.

But in this case, Lionel would have been right.  Even as Lex wanted to shout, _“What’s wrong with eternal passion?  Why couldn’t we have had that?”_ – he knew it wasn’t Clark’s fault.  However mature he may have been for his age, the truth was that Clark was only fifteen when they fell in love.  Lex couldn’t blame Clark for not wanting the same things at eighteen that he’d wanted three years earlier.  God knows Lex changed from age fifteen to age eighteen, and he’d gone about it a lot less gracefully than Clark was trying to do.

So okay.  Not Clark’s fault, foreseeable, all the rest.  That doesn’t make it sting any less when Clark gives him one of those disapproving frowns.  When Clark goes behind his back to investigate Lex’s business practices – which haven’t changed at all in the years they’ve been together, but three years ago Clark thought Lex could do no wrong.  Clark’s face would light up when Lex came into a room, like Lex was the sun in his sky.  Nobody had ever loved Lex like that before.  And bit by bit, it faded, so gradually that Lex couldn’t be sure when things shifted.  But now Clark sometimes avoids his gaze when Lex comes into the Talon.  Clark hardly ever comes by to see him anymore, and when he does, odds are he’s there to deliver a stern lecture about right and wrong – like Clark understands the first thing about business, or Luthor family dynamics.  “It must be so easy to live in your world,” Lex snaps at him, “everything black and white.”  He doesn’t want to fight, but honestly, Clark started it.  Lex hates how childish that sounds, but it’s true.

Clark looks at him with wide, wounded eyes, like he’s some puppy Lex has just kicked.  “What’s happened to you, Lex?  You didn’t used to be like this.”

_I’ve always been like this_, Lex wants to scream, but he clenches his teeth, closes his eyes, and takes a deep breath.  That he still longs for Clark to think well of him may be the worst thing of all.  He’s formulating a response in his head, something conciliatory, something he doesn’t really mean but it might convince Clark to stick around.  Maybe he can change the tenor of the conversation to something rueful and friendly, the way two guys might talk who like each other despite their differences – but then he hears a rustle, and when he opens his eyes again Clark has gone.

Lex sits.  He massages his temples.  He’s the same man he was when he met Clark, maybe a little better.  That used to be good enough.

Knowing that isn’t a comfort.


End file.
